The event happened on September 15th as an RC-135 was operating approximately eighty miles to east of the Shandong Peninsula. JH-7 fighters intercepted the jet and one performed a aggressive maneuver directly in front of it. The Pentagon has not gone into detail of exactly what the jet did, but stressed that the maneuver was perceived as “unsafe.”

These islands are likely to serve as everything from anti-submarine and maritime patrol aircraft and fighter jet bases to radar installations with forward deployed naval vessels, and even platforms for long-range anti-access missile systems. Once finished, they could allow China to “switch off” shipping through the strategic waterway on a whim.

President Xi Jinping himself was recently the centerpiece of a massive military spectacle that marked the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan during World War II. During the elaborate ceremony that ran through Tiananmen Square, throngs of conventional forces, including thousands of troops, hundreds of pieces of armor and a sky full of aircraft were on display. But most notable were China’s expanding ballistic missile arsenal, both nuclear and conventional, that Chinese forces paraded with pride as Xi Jinping looked-on stoically with Vladimir Putin by his side.

And this is the atmosphere for what will be one of the most critical and controversial State Dinners in recent history. Can the decaying U.S.-Chinese relationship be turned around through old-school diplomacy or will this State Dinner be a hollow and chilly display, one that will only cement many’s concerns over China’s murky agenda.